After night two, here we are. The finals are set and on Tuesday evening at the Graff Events Center in McCook, it will be entertaining. Before we get to that, let's take a look at the consolation matches from both the RPAC East and RPAC West. The consolation matches were best two of three.
On the East side matches were played in Bartley. #5 Alma defeated #6 Medicine Valley two sets to one after dropping set one, 25-17, 25-16, and 25-16. Alma was led by Addison Siebels with 19 kills in the match and Riley Scott had 30 assists.
Following that match, #4 Bertrand fell to #3 Southern Valley two sets to one after winning the first set, 25-20, 25-14, and 25-22. Katelyn Evans led the Vikings with nine kills while Emma Brown tallied eight kills. Brooklyn Evans had four aces and 18 digs on the match and Addison Andersen had 23 assists on the match.
And on the West side, the matches took place in Wallace. #3 Hitchcock County played #5 Maxwell. Maxwell won in two sets, 25-15 and 25-10. For Maxwell, Jocelyn Cheek led the team with seven kills and three blocks. Hitchcock County was led by Katie Jarecke and Kaiah Johnson who each had three kills. #6 Wauneta-Palisade won over #4 Maywood-Hayes Center, two sets to none, 25-18 and 25-14.
Now for the semi-finals, we begin on the West side. Wallace, the #1 seed faced Paxton the #2 seed. It took all five sets to determine a winner, but it was Wallace who took home the victory. The set scores for this match were 25-21, 25-14, 19-25, 17-25, 15-5. Paxton pushed Wallace to the limit, but the #1 seed was able to prevail. For Paxton, Audrey Holm had 19 kills, 21 assists, and four blocks, Jacelyn Jorgensen pounded 14 kills and five blocks, and Madison Hansen had 23 assists. Wallace was led by 23 kills from Kendyl Flaming as well as 25 digs, Skyler Kuhlman's 12 kills, and 10 from Reagan Finley. Kaley Sauser had 43 assists in the match while Reagan Pelster and Mariana Aceves-Lopez had 19 digs.
On the East side, it was #1 Southwest versus #2 Cambridge. These two teams played one another last week at Cambridge and the Trojans won in two sets. And earlier this season, Southwest beat the Trojans on August 26th in two sets. So it was a rubber match in the RPAC semi-finals.
It was Southwest who won in five sets over the Trojans in an excellent match. The set scores were 10-25, 25-19, 23-25, 25-16, 15-3. For Cambridge, Erin Johnson tallied 21 kills and Jalen Kent had 17 kills. Brylyn Springer had nine blocks in the match and Mallory Springer had 35 assists. For Southwest, Bryn Lampe had 48 assists and six aces, Atleigh Nelms had 17 kills and 21 digs, Kyra Nelms had 14 kills, and Payton Truksa had 11 digs on the match.
It was a hard-fought match from each team, but the Roughriders will be in the RPAC Title game for another year. Last season they fell to MHC, so they will be looking for a conference title.
So the stage is set for the 3rd and 4th place match and the championship match.
The #2 seeds, Cambridge and Paxton will dual at 5:30 P.M.
The #1 seeds, Southwest and Wallace, will play at 7:00 P.M. for Southwest, as mentioned they are back in the title match like last year. For Wallace, this is the first time since the 2010 season when they beat Southwest. If they win, it would be their third RPAC Championship The other championship they won was in 2009 when they beat the Roughriders too. Southwest, has never won an RPAC Title but has four runner-up trophies.
We will be there providing coverage on social media and a blog tomorrow evening as well. Updated brackets can be found below.